Don Quixote

Author: Miguel de Cervantes
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Don Quixote is the masterpiece of the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, a world-renowned classic, and a milestone in the history of European novel development. On one hand, it criticizes and exposes the evils of society, while on the other hand, it praises virtues such as eliminating injustice, rewarding the virtuous, and helping the poor. All of these are shared emotions of humanity, capable of transcending time and space, holding eternal value for every era and every nation. Four centuries later, it still moves every reader. According to incomplete statistics from the mid-1990s of the last century, Don Quixote has been published in over 70 languages and more than 2,000 editions. This novel has been highly praised by revolutionary leaders such as Marx, Engels, and Lenin, as well as famous writers like Schiller, Goethe, Byron, and Heine, becoming one of the world literary classics widely known and loved by readers in all countries. It has also influenced many later famous writers. Defoe once proudly claimed that Robinson Crusoe possessed a Don Quixote spirit; Faulkner read Don Quixote every year, claiming, "just like others read the Bible." If there is any essential work to read in life, it is Don Quixote. Not only is its story told wonderfully and vividly, but its language is also simple and pure. Among all the famous literary works in Europe, no other example combines seriousness and humor, tragedy and comedy, the trivial and vulgar of life with the great and the beautiful so seamlessly as Don Quixote.
On a spiritual level, humanity always faces a contradiction: ideal and reality. This is the place. Don Quixote uses the form of literature to reveal this contradiction profoundly and vividly, to the point where it is almost exhausting, making every generation feel that it is indeed so and identify with it. From an artistic perspective, Cervantes laid the foundation for modern world literature through the creation of Don Quixote. That is to say, some writing techniques of modern novels, such as realism and imagination, and stories within stories, first appeared in Don Quixote. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote as early as the 17th century, and can be said to be the father of modern novels. Because he is the father, the influence of Don Quixote on Spanish literature, European literature, and even world literature is immeasurable. A classic work always gives people different feelings and new insights. Therefore, such works are not only translated into multiple languages at the time but also continue to produce new translations as time progresses—this is the vitality of the work. And Don Quixote is exactly such a work. Don Quixote is a funny book, but when I turned the last page, I couldn’t help but ask myself, "Who is truly ridiculous? Don Quixote or me?" Suddenly, I remembered a professor who said when I first entered university, "Reading Don Quixote the first time is laughing, the second time is crying, and the third time is thinking." No wonder every time I think of this whimsical knight, a strange feeling always arises in my heart—Cervantes created a tragedy that makes people laugh and cry.
The tragedy of Don Quixote lies in its dismantling of what was once considered sacred moral values, and this dismantling is built upon a series of heavy contradictions: to eliminate the dying, hypocritical chivalry, yet to design a weak but sincere defender. Thus, when people fight against corrupt morality, they suddenly discover that the "enemy" before them is a frail old man, without the exhilaration of crushing the weak, without the heroism of bloodshed, and even when facing the resistance of a weakling, they may even question the justice of their own actions. Coincidentally, Don Quixote does not follow the hypocritical chivalry or the moral deception of a respectable facade, but rather upholds a spirit long lost to humanity: infinite loyalty to God and unwavering devotion to love. When Don Quixote begins to fight for his spiritual homeland, the second contradiction arises: the true meaning of chivalry has long been infiltrated and transformed by hypocritical morality, and secular values have already become a cumbersome aircraft carrier, shifting from loyalty to God and reverence for heroes to the pursuit of individual worth. While the change in secular values may be lagging, it also possesses strong inertia and enduring resilience. The slender but arrogant Don Quixote, however, dreams of reversing it, so he can charge headlong into the giant windmill with the power of faith, completely ignoring his own insignificance, while the dust he raises is nothing but absurdity.
Let us set aside whether the Protestant ethic has propelled social development for now; just think about it—after several years of being liberated from the Middle Ages with the banner of individualism, have people not once again developed a need for faith? We can say this is the wave-like progress and spiral rise of history, but from this, we can also see that Don Quixote and the Don Quixote-style slogans can be summed up in one word—out of place. But it cannot be denied that if people still want to maintain calm and clarity amidst rapid changes, this out-of-place-ness is essential. It is precisely these contradictions that deconstruct the necessity of Don Quixote’s existence—he becomes a redundant person, later diagnosed as "mad." The values of a madman are naturally rejected by mainstream values, yet Don Quixote’s dreams are reasonable because they contain the virtues of human nature. The rejection of reason by secular society constitutes another level of contradiction. The barber and the priest’s calculated deception in the first part, if still seen as secular values recruiting Don Quixote’s kindness, is completely negated, rejected, and spat upon by the Duke’s deliberate mockery in the second part, losing any meaning of integration and becoming merely a source of amusement. This gives the rejection a tragic hue.